The Call of Silence
by Rattraveller
Summary: Many Pray to the Emperor during their battles with the many enemies of Mankind. Sometimes those prayers are answered.


The Call of Silence

3/03/2020

For more than a Hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. His is the Master of Mankind by the Will of the Gods and Master of a Million Worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is the rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium, for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh is eaten.

Human blood and Human flesh-The stuff of which the Imperium is made.

To be alive in such times is to be one amongst untold trillions and trillions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable; this is a tale of those times.

Private Hartzman dragged the reloads for the heavy bolter up to the firing platform and handed them off to the loader. He could see he was just in time as the weapon was almost empty again. The look the loader gave him was a plead for him to try and double the load next time, but he was already so tired. He had been bringing ammunition up to this position for hours at this point. The weapon was on its last barrel, the crew having burned up all the spares and the three he had personally brought to them and still they came.

The rebels who had turned traitor from the Emperor and turned to the false gods of Chaos. They had attacked by stealth at first but those who had remained loyal had put them down. The loyalists had steadied the lines and dug in but then the rebels started to attack the lines and they did not stop coming. First it was just civilians with simple weapons in wave after wave. Then the traitor military units attacked. Better organized and much better fighters they made attempts at attacks but still threw themselves at the lines uncaring if they died.

He knew they would run out of bodies soon, but he had not known that the bodies would come for them. The next to attack were the dead first vanishing from no man's land and then risen back to throw themselves at the lines again. It took more and more ammunition to put them down. Finally, they were seeing the last of even those abominations. Now the question was what they were going to throw at them next.

As Private Hartzman made his way back the heavy bolter position again, this time with an extra canister of ammunition and another barrel over his shoulder. It had taken him longer this time to carry all of it but faster than making two trips. As he got closer, he did not hear his weapon firing. That was not good, not good at all. Finding new energy, he doubled his pace and soon found out what had happened, it was worse than he thought.

The loader was still alive but barely. The gunner was worse than dead. He had died, probably collapsed from exhaustion and then had come back and attacked the loader. The loader had given him the Emperor's mercy but not before taking a mortal wound. Private Hartzman dropped the ammunition and let the barrel fall as he drew his laspistol and put four shots into the loader before he could turn.

As he gasped for breath and tried to think, he heard the sound from coming from beyond the firing port. A slow steady crunch of steel-clad feet smashing the bodies in no man's land. Shoving the bodies away, Private Hartzman took up the firing position and looked through the viewer. Seeing the Heretic Astartes, fat, bloated, mutated, green armored abominations of what once had been the pride of the Emperor striding across the battlefield and coming to finish what the others had started almost broke Private Hartzman. A few of the heavy weapons started to fire but he knew more were out of action then could respond. All he had with him was the ammunition he had brought, and no one was coming to resupply him.

Taking up the canisters he loaded and prepared to fire. He was going to wait till they were closer so he could be sure he did not miss. Not that it seemed to matter. He watched as rounds hit the members of the traitor legion and not slow them down one bit. Still he readied the weapon and began a prayer to the Emperor. Not a standard prayer found in the Imperial Guardsman's Primer but one from his soul to try and reach the soul of the Emperor and save not himself but the common citizens of the Imperium who waited behind this thinning line of Guardsman. At this point only the Emperor could save them.

He heard the call again. He did not know how long it had been since he had last heard the call nor did he care. The call came and he and his Battle Brothers would respond. It mattered not where the call came from or who had called or who they were being called to fight. It only mattered the call had come and they would respond.

In the next fraction of time he found himself and nine of his Battle Brothers upon a field of the dead. To his right he could sense loyal sons and daughters of the one he served. That must have been where the call had originated. To his left he felt the old enemy. They fought now as they always had fought, the long slow grinding down of their opponent. Now they would be shown how the sudden attack worked when done at the right time and the right place. Now was both.

Moving into action before either side realized they were there; his Battle Brothers fired their bolters and felling several of the ancient foes. He did wait for them to come closer but moved toward them and raised his black power armor clad arms and ignited his flamer into three of the enemy. They not only screamed as they died but the many boils and lesions and ulcers on their bodies made noises both natural and unnatural as they burned. On his side neither he nor his Battle Brothers nor even their weapons made any sound as they went about their work. Not even the flames from his weapon or the flames that rose from their armor made the slightest sound.

Staying in line the ten Battle Brothers in silence swept into their opponents with flaming combat blades cutting and cauterizing wounds on them. Two of his Battle Brothers took wounds themselves and vanished before the diseases and disbelieving eyes of those who had delivered them. Soon enough they joined the rest of the traitor's souls cast back to their false gods.

Seeing that the work was done, and the call had been answered he waited to dissolve again and wait for the next call. To have served the Emperor was his purpose and he would do so again and again. Deep down he knew that his final service to the Emperor was coming soon. Then he would be silent no more.

Private Hartzman had been about to fire when the Adaptes Astartes had arrived in no man's land. To see his prayer answered stunned him into the same silence the warriors in the power armor decorated with skulls and bones fought in. Then he saw it. They had appeared in the center of the traitor's ranks and were splitting them in two. They would be outflanked and surrounded without support. He was that support. Firing the heavy bolter, he aimed for the outer most ranks of the enemy and prayed the Emperor would guide his aim. One by one he took down this wave of attackers until there was nothing left to fire at and all his ammunition was gone.

As silence descended on the battlefield, he could not believe they had won the day. He began his prayers of thanks to the Emperor but had to stop part way through. He could not remember how they had stopped the enemy, only that they had. He continued his prayer and was just thankful to be alive and able to continue serving the Emperor.


End file.
